I tend to like just about anything that falls on the right side of quirky. Case in point: last night I finished the drink of a friend of mine after she said it tasted like a stir fry, but I was intrigued by its weirdness. I mean, it's not every day you get to have a drink made with sesame oil infused vodka and fried peanuts!
That said, I might admit that Doctor Bird is just a little too much, too forward, and too weird for me. I thought I could embrace both barrels of a textbook funky Jamaican rum. Now that I'm down to the last drops of this bottle, I appreciated the ride in that “what doesn't kill you makes you stronger” kind of way, but I think it'll be far off before the next bottle.
Full disclosure: it was the name that got me. Doctor bird! Yes, technically the doctor bird is a beloved symbol of Jamaica—I know that now. But when I put the bottle in the cart, “Doctor Bird” lived in the same delightful part of my brain where I would store a cluster of words like “Dog Lawyer” or “The Honorable Judge Squirrel,” or maybe “Big Housecat, PhD.” A professional title right next to the name of an animal filled me with palpable whimsy.
As soon as I uncorked the Doctor Bird, I knew it was going to straight-up kick my ass, and that I was dealing with a serious rum. Perhaps that wouldn't have been surprising had I done my homework: Doctor Bird comes to us from the Worthy Park distillery, a Jamaican stalwart known for producing “high ester,” high ABV styles of rum. It's also the country’s oldest distillery, with a production history stretching back to 1741. They're not banging rocks together over there.
“Doctor Bird makes no attempt to blend or age away the rawness: you get more flavor that way, but you get all the flavors.”
Now, if you've never had a “high ester” kind of rum, it's how I imagine a budding young MMA fighter probably experiences being kicked in the head for the first time.
I mentioned that smell. If you're one of those people who doesn't think they're equipped to tease out nuances within spirits, Doctor Bird will undoubtedly smell like things to you. To me, the fruit and funk combines in weird ways. Dried papaya sitting in a pool of rainwater. Bananas foster and cigar smoke. Chamomile and gasoline. Nectarines pulled from the mustiest burlap sack you've got. I limited these notes for time and length.
In the same way that the spirit giveth, with fresh notes of guava, pineapple, butterscotch, and lemon cream, the spirit taketh away, with an arrival that tastes occasionally like dirty lighter fluid, olives, or rusty metal. It's a dry rum for sure, and if you leave the spirit in your mouth for a long while after the last sip, most of the tastes would leave you second-guessing yourself as to whether you had a rum at all, or if you had some kind of strange, earthy salad.
And that's the essence of the super funky style, essentially. Absolutely no care has been taken to blend or age away the rawness of the spirit. You get more flavor that way, but the intensity of some of the nice tropical fruits is counterbalanced by off-notes that are just gonzo in their aggressiveness.
Lest you think I'm being a little hyperbolic with the Doctor Bird, just try substituting this into some simple Tiki drinks and see if it doesn't completely bowl the cocktail over. Testing was limited, but the Doctor Bird literally shouted down all of the other ingredients in a rum mule as well as the even simpler Cuba Libre. I had to cut the proportions of the Doctor Bird considerably because of the intensity of the flavors, not the booziness.
To the Doctor Bird's credit, it handles its high proof very well. $25 a bottle for a 50% ABV rum is a heck of a good deal, and made all the better by how sedate it actually seems on the way down. That might be a side effect of obliterating my tastebuds with so many different flavors that I'm ill-equipped to pay attention to the “burn” of the spirit, but I'm more inclined to credit the quality of the spirit itself.
All in all, this bottle should be a must-buy for the adventurous rum drinker, but step one would be Smith and Cross, which I think is far more genial and less abrasive in character despite being another high ester, high ABV style. It'll be up your alley if you like stuff that's self-consciously weird, but I think those drinkers are few and far between.
Sadly, I think that’s probably a reason why I can think of so few rums like this that have been able to penetrate the American market. I’m glad Doctor Rum is on the shelf. It’s definitely not for me, but I hope it does well.
